although I'm a german-teachers child the only thing I can do to get over this regional problem is to get out my cell phone and write every appointment down reassuring the date by number.
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Samuel HerzogJun 1 '11 at 0:09

11 Answers
11

A common usage is to distinguish between "this Tuesday" (the chronological next one) and "next Tuesday" (the Tuesday after this). But many people will also use "next Tuesday" for the chronological next one due to the literal meaning of "next".

I even found confusions in the same regions, so I wouldn't even be sure it's region-specific.
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ladybugMay 31 '11 at 13:36

If you don't talk about this Tuesday, this Tuesday is next Tuesday. Only if you talk about this Tuesday, then next Thuesday may refer to the Tuesday next to this Tuesday, as you can talk about the Tuesday next to the 2nd Tuesday of November (which is, btw. the 3rd Tuesday) in November.
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user unknownJun 4 '11 at 15:18

I don't know whether I understand the question correctly but here I go.

Personally I think there isn't a lot of ambiguity when you refer to a day by name that doesn't occur in the current week anymore. So in this example it would be the 31st.

On the other hand, if today is say Monday and you say "nächsten Mittwoch", it could mean the day after tomorrow or Wednesday next week. Some people make a difference between "diesen Mittwoch" and "nächsten Mittwoch". It's better to ask if you're not sure.

+1 Asking is the correct answer. Personally I'm using 'dieser' and 'nächster' and using my parents conventions I mean Jun 7. But I know that a my workplace Munich the local people use it for 31st May.
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bernd_kMay 28 '11 at 21:15

I always get confused with that, too. I would naturally mean the 31st. But to be sure, you can ask

Also den jetzt kommenden Dienstag?

Actually if I wanted to mean the 31st, I would only say

Gut. Treffen wir uns also dann am Dienstag um acht Uhr.

But people do that differently, so I also think the German meant the 31st but you can ask to be sure.

Edit: My parents come from Berlin, I grew up in Rostock. I actually use "dieser", "kommender", and "nächste" all for the same meaning and say something like "Dienstag in anderthalb Wochen" to refer to June 7th.

This might be different from region to region, but where I come from (Rheinland) I usually found the following meaning:

"Diesen Dienstag" means the Tuesday within the current week. So if my reference date is Mo, 30.05.2011 "diesen Dienstag" means Di, 31.05.2011. "Nächsten Dienstag" is therefore short for "tuesday next week" which means Di, 07.06.2011.

However: Even for the same group of people this seems to vary from time to time, so I always specify it like "Diese Woche Dienstag" or "Nächste Woche Dienstag" to be absolutely clear.

I disagree. 'Nächster Montag' is always the same as 'dieser Montag', just if you say 'nicht diesen Montag, sondern nächsten' the 'übernächster Montag' is meant, which is the next, seen from this monday. You may even say: 'Not the 2nd monday in October, but the next' which is the 3rd monday in October, not the first in June.
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user unknownJun 4 '11 at 15:09

If I say 'Nächschte Donnschti' (next Thursday) on Monday, I mean the day three days from now. But some of my friends would understand three days and a week from now and they'd tell me that if I ment 'dä Donnschti' (this Thursday) why did I say 'nächschte'. But if the same conversation would take place on Saturday, 'nächschte' would be fine for them.